Penn State Prez Says In "Hindsight," School Should Have Moved Quicker On Sandusky Scandal.

In “hindsight” top officials at the Pennsylvania State University should have been more aware of the activities of former football coach Jerry Sandusky and moved more proactively to stop them, university President Rodney Erickson told a state Senate panel Wednesday.

“It was clear that there were signs there,” with Sandusky, who has been charged with more than 50 counts of child sexual abuse, “that should have been followed up that weren’t,” Erickson said during a hearing on the land-grant school’s annual budget request.

"From everything that I have been able to learn from the board, the information that had been conveyed to them was that it was a former employee who had been gone for 12 years,” Erickson said of Sandusky, the Nittany Lions’ famed former defensive coordinator, who left Penn State in 1999.

“There were no indications that anyone at the university had been the target of charges. Looking back, it’s seemingly easier to see that,” he said.

In an interview after his 90-minute appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Erickson underlined that position and said the university’s Board of Trustees is taking steps to streamline its operations.

“As I said hindsight is usually quite clear,” he said. “Knowing what we do now, yes. But certainly that information wasn’t available at the time the [state grand jury] presentment was released and the board saw it for the first time. “

The changes to the board will allow it to be “much more aggressive in being able to respond,” to potential problems, he also told lawmakers.

“As president, that’s a good move in the ways it will open up the lines of communication,” he said.

The appearance marked the second time in a week that Erickson, who succeeded former President Graham B. Spanier last year, appeared before lawmakers to ask them not to cut the school’s now- $227 million appropriation.

Three of the four so-called “state-related” universities: Penn State and Temple universities and the University of Pittsburgh, come in for a proposed 30 percent reduction in Gov. Tom Corbett’s $27.14 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Lincoln University, the fourth and smallest of the schools, would be flat-funded.

As he did before a state House panel last week, Erickson warned that two years in a row of reductions in taxpayer support jeopardized both the lower-cost tuition offered to state residents and the operation of 19 satellite campuses across the state – including one in the Lehigh Valley.

The second year of cuts has prompted speculation that the Corbett administration might be trying to wean the universities off taxpayer support and usher them down the road to become private institutions. Administration officials have steadfastly denied that is the case.

“We will do our best to keep tuition as low as possible to keep alive the dream of a Penn State education for the sons and daughters of Pennsylvania’s working families,” Erickson told lawmakers, even as he asked them, “Will we meet that challenge together or will we be forced to do it alone.”

Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Centre, whose district includes Penn State, has said he opposed the administration’s proposed cuts for the state-related schools, the 14 state-owned universities and community colleges and wanted to find a way to restore some of that money.